Frank commentary from an unretired call girl

Chupacabra

Oh, I know they exist. Ok well I’m pretty sure they exist. I’ve never seen or met one that I know of. I’ve seen videos on YouTube and JohnTV. I’ve read newspaper accounts of them and heard the horror stories from women who have been controlled by pimps. So I’m pretty sure they are out there. Kinda like the Chupacabra. – Brandy Devereaux

For international readers who maybe unfamiliar with the American legend, the chupacabra (from the Spanish for “goat sucker”) is a cryptid (a legendary animal like the yeti or Loch Ness monster) said to live in Puerto Rico, Mexico and the American Southwest. The legend is of relatively recent vintage (March 1995) but spread quickly through Hispanic communities; reports describe the animal as being canine, rat-like and hairless, and its name derives from its habit of drinking the blood of livestock (especially goats). Though the critter has attained a considerable reputation, its reality is both smaller and far more pragmatic: every carcass brought in to scientists as that of a chupacabra has been identified as that of a coyote, mutant coyote or hybrid coyote with an advanced case of sarcoptic mange. Yet the legend persists, because it’s more exciting to believe in a fantastic monster than a rather mundane reality.

The exciting myth

This is, as Brandy so astutely observed, exactly the mechanism involved in the legend of the pimp. Like the mythical chupacabra, the storied pimp is a common and powerful bloodsucking monster who can be found nearly everywhere, leaves a trail of exsanguinated victims and evades every attempt to stop him. But in reality, he is either a fairly rare (morally) diseased individual or else a rather normal and mundane creature misidentified as a monster by those who love a good tall tale. I’ve written before about this syndrome; the short version is, “When an outsider looks at a whore’s life, he tends to interpret every non-customer male who has any kind of relationship with her as a ‘pimp’, because of course everybody knows that all whores have pimps.” I’ve estimated the prevalence of all prostitutes encumbered with the stereotypical abusive, controlling pimp (of which prohibitionists are so fond) at 1.5%. That’s roughly the same as the percentage of women who report that their husbands or boyfriends are “extremely violent” (1.2%) and not-dissimilar to the percentage who say he is “extremely controlling” (2.3%); in other words, pros have roughly the same rate of abuse by their pimps as amateurs have with the men in their lives, yet I don’t see politicians hurrying to outlaw marriage and heterosexual relationships because of it. And lest you think my figures are too low, I advise you to consider the recent study discussed in my column of April 29th which found that only 8% of underage prostitutes in New York City had been forced into prostitution by a “pimp,” only 10% currently worked with one and only 16% had ever even met one. Considering that I think we can all agree that underage girls are probably more vulnerable to abuse and manipulation than adult women are, and that these figures represent ALL pimps of underage prostitutes rather than just abusive, controlling ones, it may be that my 1.5% figure (derived as it was from a base estimate of 10% of all streetwalkers controlled by pimps) was actually too high!

But those are statistics for advanced, Western countries; surely it’s higher in the so-called “third world”, right? Well, no. Brandy discussed this in her column of May 19th:

…I’m not talking about a manager who helps hookers out with security (like a bodyguard) or with helping her find clients and ensuring that they aren’t cops. When I say pimp I’m talking about the typical stereotype – violent, knocks women over the head cuz honey didn’t make him any money, supplies drugs, forces them on the street – you know, like in the movies and those 70′s tv shows. The Farleys want you to believe that every hooker MUST have a pimp that they allow to find men to rape them. No woman in her right mind would choose sex work. No man that works with or for a hooker has any other motive except to beat the snot out of the woman and steal all her money. They push this ‘research’ they have done into most news stories and papers and arguments against prostitution. It’s ALL trafficking, we are all VICTIMS, and someone must be controlling us by force/coercion…Why then are women around the world, yes even third world countries where we all KNOW it’s all about minors and forced prostitution, standing up for their rights as prostitutes (sans any “pimp”)?

The mundane reality

She follows this up with numerous links backing up her point, which is the same as mine: actual pimps (as opposed to husbands, boyfriends, managers, escort service owners, bodyguards, drivers and male friends who are accused by “authorities” of being pimps) are actually pretty rare all over the world. There are indeed chupacabras, and they do pose a danger to livestock. But they’re not 70-kg monsters who occur in vast numbers and mercilessly decimate herds while evading all attempts at capture; a few are underfed, mangy coyotes which prey on the weak, and the rest are simply normal coyotes, wolves, dogs, foxes and other creatures which are mistaken for chupacabras by hysterical monster-hunters.

28 Responses

I spoke with a man at length in Dallas during which neither of us at the time understood the others true position until later.
I, being an escort, and he being a self proclaimed pimp.

The comment began somewhere around rap music when I made the comment “Pimping is dead. Replaced by the internet.”

He began to go on and on and on about the prevalence of pimps in Houston and Dallas.

It was a long conversation, but the end result was that I was the only one of the two of us making any money. His pimp fantasy may have been real in his mind, as he did make a tiny effort to “encourage” me to be more successful.

I laughed at the notion. He was down and out, had no girls working for him, and my impression was that he was no pimp at all, but used this word to describe his dating style, which was to date women that would support him. (tried to date me too) Arranging clients was not involved.

I did receive weird texts from one man in Dallas with the same message of ” You could be so successful with just a little encouragement” What? I travel all over the country, have a huge member base at my website, I am financially secure and some random texter is going to make me “more successful”?

I don’t think these guys are real pimps at all. I think that the word has evolved in pop culture to be a man that dates women very shallowly, and uses them while providing little in return. It doesn’t really have much to do with actual sex work that I have personally seen, but I’m with Brandy, I’m sure they are out there somewhere…. But they are a dying breed.

I found your blog a few days ago and I am loving it so far… I will probably have comments in response the the actual topic at some point in the future but I just had to comment on your choice of photo…which is a bit disturbing. I’m not going to look it up and search around to get this confirmed but it looks like a dead dog after it has been skinned? Not really sure why that’s necessary or how it’s relevant…? I admit I’m probably a bit more sensitive than most people when it comes to animals but is it really possible to be unaffected and undisturbed at the sight of this picture??

Anyway, sorry for being off topic – I just found the choice of image pretty harsh and not exactly the kind of picture I particularly want to see. Eek. End rant. *ducks and hides*

Sorry for the shock, Mlle B! That picture is of an animal reported to authorities as a mythical chupacabra; tests confirmed that it was a malnourished coyote with an advanced case of mange which caused it to lose its hair. The picture was intended to demonstrate the difference between the myth of the chupacabra (first pic) and the reality, just as the reality of “pimps” is less interesting than the myth (and often rather pathetic).

As an animal lover myself I understand how it might’ve upset you, thinking it was a dog. Sorry about that!

It is said that the “Disco Lifestyle” that people “remember” from the 1970’s can be traced to the film Saturday Night Fever, which pretty much made the whole thing up. Supposedly the actual New York disco scene was blatantly homosexual, and homosexual-excess-deviant at that. So, if we accept this, the “Disco 70’s” are an imitation of something that never existed in the first place.

(Aside; the Japanese Animation series Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex deals with this phenomenon interestingly)

I wonder if something similar could be said of the Pimp, and if so what the fictional origin was….

Similarly, descriptions of alien abductors were incredibly varied until the late ’70s, but after the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind they nearly all became the now-familiar “grays” portrayed in that movie. And the first chupacabra report may have been triggered by the movie Species.

I saw the movie Ghost in the Shell, but have only seen one episode of Stand Alone Complex. Disco, huh?

BTW, I strongly recommend GitS, especially if you liked The Matrix even a little bit.

My GM has called my character “Pimp Daddy Wizard” for so long I don’t think he even remembers his name. Hey, my little sister’s character was mayor, my brudder-in-law’s ran the casino, and my niece’s ran the saloon. A brothel was about all that was left.

Besides, once my character ascended to Godhood, all my girls became priestesses.

To clarify; I was not saying that Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex had anything to do with Disco, buy that one of its themes was how cultural phenomena can have no traceable point of origin, having originated from peoples perceptions of reality rather than from reality itself.

A good example of how readily reality is dismissed by those who need to push the myth of the ‘pimp,’ because his absence would undercut any credibility to the prostitute as hapless, unwitting and unwilling victims to the evil (and always male) human traffickers and pimps who prey upon them.

Neo-feminists, from my POV, have an agenda that includes two main elements (though these aren’t to the exclusion of others):

1. Forcing upon women their own prerogative of what ’empowered choice’ entails, which excludes just about anything viewed as classically feminine or which allows a woman full control over her own sexuality; the latter would include prostitution as a perfectly viable choice, but that doesn’t suit their agenda, so its to be suppressed and marginalized using every means available (the media, the neo-feminist writings that have invaded mainstream social science, and law enforcement and the judicial process including legislation that empowers the above to criminalize it and exact increasingly punitive penalties on their trade.

2. Propaganda directed against men (and women too, though in a slightly more indirect manner) and which, within this context, places them in the role of the evil human trafficker, pimp, and John – all of whom, in their various ways, take advantage of ‘innocent’ and hapless women to suit their own exclusively male prerogative. Naturally it must also encompass the most negative male stereotypes as well; thus, they always victimize women (which also furthers the prostitute as victim stereotype), are always abusive, and always claim the earnings of these women for themselves so as to maintain their control over them.

Like all propaganda, facts are irrelevant. Instead it panders to self serving stereotypes which best suit the intellectually lazy audience it is aimed at, and in turn needs only – as “evidence’ – the same self-serving myth that law enforcement, Hollywood, and the media gleefully embrace because it in turn suits their own agenda.

Unfortunately, for each of these groups (except the neo-feminist movement who is the primary benefactor), aside from running completely counter to actual facts, it helps create the very conditions its moral outrage is directed against. Women who choose entry into this profession are forced to the fringes where they are at the mercy of their ‘protector’ types in law enforcement (and who Maggie has illustrated well in various columns, take advantage of this very fringe status to extort or take by force that which the combination of their position and the fringe status of the prostitute allows them to).

Similarly, any male connected in any way to the prostitute must – according to this storyline – be victimizing these women and also then faces both stigma and the wrath of law enforcement as well. This denies access to the very things that women in other professions are easily granted, and which the prostitute should no less be entitled to: bodyguards, drivers, managers, and even husbands if they choose one. This entails mutually beneficial and cooperative roles between the sexes which are antithetical to the neo-feminist, however, and which therefore must be discouraged by all means possible including outright vilification and the co-opting of government to write the very self-serving legislation.

And at the end of the day, that is, for them, what its really about: denying women the full range of choice their sexuality entails, and furthering their anti-male agenda by removing (or attempting to) the access to sex on mutually beneficial terms that prostitution allows them, while using negative stereotypes to attack members of both sexes who dare to flout the narrow bounds of convention that neo-feminists deem acceptable.

Now there you go again, Maggie, bringing all your facts into it. You can prove anything with facts! Much better to inform our policies based on episodes of Law and Order: SVU. And wasn’t there some movie about a rapping pimp or something?

I think one problem is that many of the prohibitions work in industries, such as politics, where there *are* career gatekeepers and their live are *defined* by power struggles and dominance. The idea that someone can just hang out a shingle (or in his case, maybe a stocking) and do business is appalls them. They want the entire country to be like their industry: where everyone is controlled by someone and the citizens has to genuflect to wiser authority to do anything, including sex.

I saw that episode. There were these two private school girls, see, who would cruise the mall and convince men to buy them Gucci handbags, Loubotin shoes and Prada blouses. $1200 items for a blowjob in a mall stock closet. And THEN the girls met a dude who said they could make so much money. He worked the front desk at a swank hotel, and these rich guys would ask for escorts, you see. So the girls moved up in the world from doing mere blowjobs for $1200 merchandise to being $300 hour FS with the front desk clerk/pimp taking a cut of 70%.

Just to let you know, Maggie, you’ve put a big rut in my political writing. I no longer feel comfortable calling politicians “whores” anymore. There’s a Heinlein quote you’re probably familiar with: “It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.” If prostitutes acted like politicians, they’d promise you the best sex ever, mortgage your house and then have unprotected sex with someone else. Actually, given the recent sex scandals, I think that’s almost exactly what politicians do.

You are too kind to politicians. What you propose would actually be a marked improvement over what finds its way into government of all levels in recent decades. They’re well beyond promising that which they don’t deliver, the house they mortgaged has been refinanced to the hilt (and the credit cards run up with it), and their sex scandals are not only so familiar as to be beyond novel, they are now more likely to be embraced as bit of levity and cheery distraction from the much more common and seedy corruption.

How did I miss this all this time? Discussing the ChubaCabra is one of my favorite time wasting things to talk about – no one in polite community even knows what they are – Maggie gets cooler by the second.

[…] for the study. Moreover, fewer than half of street workers have pimps, and about half of the pimps are actually the employees of the women they manage, not the other way around. Yet the researchers interviewed twice as many pimps as sex workers, […]

[…] brutal (and usually dark-skinned) men who force women into prostitution, despite the fact that (as I’ve pointed out on numerous occasions) the abusive, controlling pimp of legend is so rare we can consider him an anomaly. In fact, the […]

In highschool, I had a friend who was forced and coerced into prostitution by her boyfriend. She’d have sex with strangers and his friends (after varying levels of force) and he’d pocket the money. Yet, by your logic, this is not a pimp. There’s something wrong with your logic. This arrangement is very common.

Who said that wasn’t a pimp? Methinks you’re seeing what you want to see rather than what’s written on the page. Furthermore, this arrangement is not very common; the plural of anecdote is not data. I had an uncle who died of leukemia; by your logic, that makes leukemia “very common”.

If one were to conclude the most common cause of leukemia is a sibling having a child, nobody would take that seriously. But when it comes to prostitution, many of us are quite willing to make such leaps.

Lynn, I’m sorry for what happened to your friend. And yes, her scumbag of a boyfriend was a pimp. But that isn’t what happens in most cases. In most cases, a girl is working for herself, or for her children. In fact, some retired hookers have said things like “my pimp was my kids; they got most of my money.”

[…] denial of the agency of every single sex worker, the mythmaking about “pimps” who in real life barely even exist, the libeling of escort services as “sex trafficking”, and the reiteration of the same dubious […]

[…] for the study. Moreover, fewer than half of street workers have pimps, and about half of the pimpsare actually the employees of the women they manage, not the other way around. Yet the researchers interviewed twice as many pimps as sex workers, […]

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